Risk and finance industry still see cloud as a concern, notes Gartner

Even the slowest industries are moving workloads to the cloud – take risk, audit and finance as an example. Yet there is still plenty more to be done before these verticals become truly comfortable.

That’s according to the latest report from analyst firm Gartner. In the company’s most recent Emerging Risks study, cloud computing remains the primary concern for those in risk and compliance. Cloud was ahead of cybersecurity disclosure and GDPR compliance as the biggest worry for the 110 senior executives polled.

Given Gartner predicts cloud computing to be a $300 billion business by 2021 – and is indeed a cornerstone of the company’s feted ‘digital business’ ethos – there is plenty of reason to get involved. Yet these organisations have a right to be concerned. Gartner added that through 2022, ‘at least’ 95% of cloud security failures will be attributable to the organisation – and that companies should expect to be affected by cybersecurity threats in ‘unpredictable’ ways.

Organisations continue to struggle with security despite record spending on information security over the past two years, according to Gartner. And it is only going to get worse from here. Social engineering, alongside the threat of GDPR, were cited as most likely to cause the most mayhem for enterprises if not properly addressed by risk management leaders.

This publication has explored the various strategies different industries have undertaken in adopting cloud-based technologies. Take healthcare as an example. Writing for this publication in February, Virtustream’s Roberto Mircoli noted that while to date health organisations had been ‘testing the waters by focusing on modernising the back end of systems… transforming core healthcare systems and applications’ was now the order of the day.

“Executives are right to expand cloud services as part of their digital business initiatives, but they need to ensure their cloud security strategy keeps up with this growth,” said Matthew Shinkman, practice leader at Gartner in a statement. “Leaders should start by clearly identifying their most at-risk areas, which remain obscure to many large organisation leaders.”